What is the meaning of Acts 10:15? The voice spoke to him a second time • Peter is on the rooftop in Joppa when the heavenly voice repeats its message (Acts 10:9-16). • The repetition underscores certainty and urgency, much like God repeating Joseph’s dreams in Egypt (Genesis 41:32) and calling Samuel multiple times (1 Samuel 3:8-10). • This is not a vague impression but a literal voice from heaven, confirming that the instruction carries divine authority (Acts 11:9). • God often restates truth when He is shifting His people’s understanding—as here, moving Peter from a strictly Jewish outlook to a gospel‐wide view that embraces the nations (Isaiah 49:6; Matthew 28:19). Do not call anything impure • Under the Mosaic Law certain animals were labeled “unclean” (Leviticus 11). Peter, a devout Jew, had never eaten them (Acts 10:14). • The word “anything” widens the principle beyond food; Jews commonly regarded Gentiles as ceremonially defiled (John 18:28; Galatians 2:12). • Jesus had already hinted at a broader standard—“Nothing that enters a man from the outside can defile him” (Mark 7:15). Now God drives the point home: Peter must drop the old boundary lines when preaching Christ. • The command challenges every believer’s tendency to label people or practices as beyond redemption when God is extending grace. that God has made clean • God alone pronounces something clean; human opinion cannot overrule His declaration (Romans 14:4). • Through Christ’s sacrifice, He has cleansed not only foods (1 Timothy 4:4-5) but also hearts—“He made no distinction between us and them, for He cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8-9). • The vision prepares Peter to enter Cornelius’s gentile household without hesitation (Acts 10:28-29, 34-35). • It announces the end of the ceremonial wall separating Jew and Gentile, fulfilling “He Himself is our peace…having torn down the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14-16). • What Christ has purified—whether a repentant sinner, a marriage, or a table of food—remains clean despite lingering cultural taboos (Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:10). summary Acts 10:15 means that God, through Christ, has removed the old ceremonial barriers and now declares both people and foods clean. The repeated heavenly voice tells Peter—and us—that we must abandon prejudices and receive whom God receives. When God pronounces something clean, believers are bound to treat it as clean, honoring His sovereign work of redemption and welcoming all who come to Him in faith. |
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